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Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., is previewing a soon-to-be-released book that she says will expose widespread corruption in higher education.
"This book talks about the moral rot and the academic rot in America's most elite higher education institution," Stefanik told Fox News Digital in an interview Wednesday.
Stefanik’s new book, "Poisoned Ivies: The Inside Account of the Academic and Moral Rot at America's Elite Universities," to be released in April, explores what she describes as the decay in America’s most prestigious educational institutions.
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Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., is previewing a soon-to-be-released book that she says will expose widespread corruption in higher education. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
"This goes back to the hearing heard around the world a few years ago when we had the presidents, former presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT testify in front of Congress," Stefanik said. "And I asked them one very simple moral question. It was not a political one — it was a moral one."
During the 2023 hearing, Stefanik asked the Ivy League leaders whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated their schools’ rules or codes of conduct.
"And one after the other after the other, MIT Penn and Harvard's president said, quote, ‘It depends on the context,’" Stefanik said. "And the world heard, it was viewed over a billion times and set off an earthquake in higher education that has really led us to this point."
Stefanik is now running for governor of New York, trying to become the first Republican to be elected since George Pataki in 2002.
As a product of an Ivy League herself, Stefanik said she believes these institutions have strayed far from their original purpose.
"I myself am a graduate of one of these universities," Stefanik said. "I graduated from Harvard. I was the first member of my immediate family to have that opportunity to graduate from college. And that was not the experience that I had nearly 20 years ago. While, of course, the schools were left-leaning, we did not see this strain of anti-Americanism that was so much at the forefront."
She said she also knows there is a problem because of the personal stories she has heard from students.
"I have met with hundreds of students who were impacted, our office has heard from literally tens of thousands of students across the country weighing in on this issue," Stefanik said.
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Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York, during a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023. (Haiyun Jiang/Bloomberg)
"And in many parts of the book, it relies on firsthand student testimony that was shared with me because I serve on the House Education and Workforce Committee, and it was shared publicly in many cases about these experiences that these students were having on campuses," she added. "The book goes into really jaw-dropping detail provided by these students of the harassment they faced, of the need for having physical security. And it's an important read for the American people about how we need to reform our higher education system and fix this for future generations."
Especially concerning to her, Stefanik said, is the influx of foreign money flooding the U.S. education system.
According to a recent report from Americans for Public Trust, $60 billion in foreign gifts and contracts were fed to American colleges and universities, including $20 billion alone to elite schools like Harvard, Yale, and others.
According to a recent report from Americans for Public Trust, $60 billion in foreign gifts and contracts were fed to American colleges and universities, including $20 billion alone to elite schools like Harvard, Yale, and others. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
As part of that total, $795 million was from American adversaries including Russia, Venezuela, Yemen and China.
"There's a huge amount of foreign dollars from adversaries flowing into our higher education system," Stefanik said. "We need to make sure that there is much stricter compliance. There needs to be a focus on prioritizing American students rather than foreign students."
Nearly as important, Stefanik said, is addressing tenure faculty programs that she believes have become strongholds of ideological groupthink.
Stefanik said American values must be restored to address deeper problems across higher education.
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Stefanik said American values must be restored to address deeper problems in higher education. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)
"These are not American values that are being represented at these schools," Stefanik said. "And that's a real concern. So I think we have an opportunity to use the fact that there's so much taxpayer funding to require these schools, which they should be by law required to do to protect students on campus. But also you need to address the growing foreign influence at these universities."
Fox News Digital reached out to Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and MIT for comment.
Rachel del Guidice is a reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected].
